Gimbol's diatribe and screed

And they worry about this now?

Fruedian slip?

Some of the Liberals’ biggest headaches over the past couple of decades have
been rooted in the party’s trench warfare over rules and membership.
Claims of huge sign-ups this week from Joe Volpe’s leadership organization, for
instance, have re-awakened party angst about the role of “instant
Liberals.” As well, policy-driven people who want to change the world
are increasingly attracted to interest groups and away from political
parties, and Eizenga said the Liberals want to stop that erosion.

What person of reasonable intellegence keeps doing the same bad move over and over again?
I think thats referred to as insanity.
Eizinga a lawyer by trade should know several truisms about politics.

1. There is no such thing as "off the record".
2. Never telegraph your punches.
3. Never reveal your weakness.
4. Don't talk about taking action unless your prepared to take said action.

I've no doubt Mike wants to give the message that the liberal party really is learning from its mistakes. But if you let the scribes know in no uncertain terms that a) the bad stuff (insta-members) really was happening b) its still happening and c) they won't be doing anything about it till "some time after the convention" the message is that all that bad stuff is still going on and worse they really can't help themselves. He further enforces the message by revealing that the party is losing members to interest groups (read kook fringe) and they therefore don't have the numbers they once had. To get what I'm alluding to, the numbers game is very much in play here. The liberals are expected to have close to 5000 delegates attend the convention, they have as yet not revealed the number of memberships they where able to sell before the cutoff. My guess is that they are reluctant to release those numbers because its a "it bleeds it leads" kind of story. The media is always looking for a train wreck to report on, not making the same numbers as the last time is a perfect lead in to such a story. It looks even worse if they don't reach the 5000 delegates for the convention.

The commentary will go something like that they really lost a huge amount of support because they are not the governing party, and it suggests that maybe those numbers where not really there. The collorary being that some candidates might be inflating their numbers....another story the LPC surely doesn't want to see in the morning headlines. Frankly Mike openly musing that Volpe may be mass recruiting insta-members isn't that the story may come out, its that its only a matter of time.

My final point is that if the LPC doesn't find somebody with a pair that is willing to enforce not just the rules but the intent behind them, Stephen Harper will have no problem finding that majority. The insanity is that they see this but they won't do anything about it, and when your trying to convince a nation that you're still the "natural governing party" it just turns prospective members off. They see the problem, they know what to do about it, hell they even have a report from ten years ago telling them what to do, but still nobody in the party has the will to make it happen. Its like nobody in the liberal party has the courage to do what must be done, or they depend to heavily on the interest groups to keep themselves in business.

Its like they've been co-opted.

posted by gimbol @ 3:03 AM